Tokyo (awp/afp) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange opened sharply lower on Wednesday, weighed down by Wall Street’s severe losses the day before in the wake of a jump in bond yields and the imminent return of health restrictions in much of the world. Japan.
The flagship Nikkei index dropped 1.89% to 27,722.03 points around 12:50 a.m. GMT and the broader Topix index fell 2.02% to 1,938.35 points.
Wall Street fell on Tuesday, especially its tech-heavy Nasdaq index.
Questions about the next steps of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to tame inflation sent US Treasury yields up again, a negative factor for equity markets.
“The level of market uncertainty is high” and the sharp price fluctuations “are likely to persist until March, until the Fed clarifies the next steps of its monetary policy”, according to Mitsushige Akino, an official of Ichiyoshi Asset Management quoted by the Bloomberg agency.
Furthermore, in Japan, the resurgence of the coronavirus continues to worry investors because of its potential impact on the economic recovery. Restrictions should be announced by the government at the end of the week for Tokyo and a dozen other departments of the archipelago.
On the side of values
SONY SOUNDED BY MICROSOFT: Sony stock plummeted 9.45% to 12,885 yen, its worst slide since the initial shock of the pandemic in March 2020.
In question, the announcement by its major competitor on the world video game market, the American Microsoft, of its intention to buy the star publisher Activision Blizzard (“Call of Duty”, “Candy Crush”…) for the astronomical sum of $68.7 billion, which would be a record acquisition for the sector.
TOYOTA STILL LACK OF SEMICONDUCTORS: Toyota shares fell 2.62% to 2,360 yen. The group announced on Tuesday evening that it had given up on its objective of producing 9 million vehicles of its Toyota and Lexus brands in its 2021/22 financial year which will end on March 31, being still obliged to suspend part of its production in Japan in February because of the global shortage of semiconductors.
On the side of currencies and oil
The yen stabilized against the dollar: around 12:45 a.m. GMT a dollar traded for 114.64 yen against 114.61 yen the day before at 9:00 p.m. GMT.
The euro was worth 129.84 yen, almost unchanged there too compared to Tuesday at the end of the exchanges (129.80 yen).
In addition, one euro was trading for 1.1325 dollars, the same price as Tuesday 9:00 p.m. GMT.
Rising to its highest levels since 2014 on Tuesday, oil continued to soar: around 12:40 a.m. GMT, the price of a US barrel of WTI gained 1.67% to 86.86 dollars.
OPEC on Tuesday maintained its “robust” forecast for global demand for crude oil to rise this year, as oil prices are already boosted by supply disruptions and heightened geopolitical tensions.
etb/dth